SPRINGFIELD - President Barack Obama's job approval rating in Massachusetts is on the climb, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

The telephone survey conducted by Western New England University's Polling Institute through a partnership with The Republican and MassLive.com, concluded that 57 percent of likely voters are giving Obama a thumbs up for his job performance while 36 percent say they don't approve of how he's handling the reigns of the free world. Among registered voters, 60 percent say they approve while 30 percent disapprove.

The numbers reflect an upward trajectory for the Democratic president hoping to win a second term against the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Among Democrats likely to vote in Massachusetts, 93 percent approve of the way Obama is doing his job, while only 12 percent of Republicans said the same thing. Independents, which make up 52 percent of the electorate in the commonwealth, support the president's job performance by a margin of 45-49 percent.

Although voters across Massachusetts overwhelmingly support the president's job performance, the numbers vary by region.

In Western Massachusetts, 67 percent of likely voters gave Obama a positive report card. In Central Massachusetts and Boston and its suburbs, the two geographic regions respectively gave Obama a 60 and 59 percent positive approval rating. Fifty percent of likely voters in the North and South Shores, which were considered one group in the survey, approved of Obama's performance, while 45 percent said they disapprove. The poll suggests that the shores hold the least support for Obama in terms of his performance.

According to past WNE polls, Obama's job performance rating in the Bay State hit a high of 68 percent among registered voters in Feb. 2009, while dropping to 55 percent in March 2012 and 54 percent in May.

While Obama is widely expected to win Massachusetts over Romney in the Nov. 6 election, the poll shows the Democratic president leading 60 to 38 percent, among likely voters.

The margin among registered voters is even greater with Obama leading 64-32 percent. The previous WNE poll conducted in May, showed Obama edging Romney 56 to 34 percent.

The current poll of 545 registered voters has a 4.2 percent margin of error, while the sample of 444 likely voters has a 4.6 percent margin of error.

The data tables and press release from Western New England University can be downloaded here.